Subject: Re: Engineering Envy [was: Re: CL and UML]
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 16:08:26 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3204288502691393@naggum.net>

* "Biep @ http://www.biep.org/" <reply-via@my-web-site.com>
> Yes, these people sign contracts, but what does a stupid piece of paper
> mean to them?  The fact that we in the West get all worked up over
> contracts and signatures doesn't mean that it has any significance in
> their culture - if your patron asks you do do something, including
> signing a paper, of course you do it.

  Well, if nothing else, this certainly explains why they do not eveolve
  reasonable economies or legal systems and why the whole continent reeks
  of corruption.  It is so tremendously sad to see what a bad culture can
  do to good people and how much it can keep them back.  Stamping out bad
  cultures should have been one of the United Nations' primary missions.
  But, tragically, it cannot be.  We show "respect" for people by trying to
  pretend that we think they know what they are doing, if they are harming
  themselves in the name of some "culture".  People in our own culture who
  "invented" the same insanity would be put in jail or in hospital, but,
  instead of telling people to snap out of it, we "respect" other cultures
  through a process of extremely demeaning and denigratory "we do not think
  you could do any better, so it is OK for you to do those insane things".
  The only _real_ evidence of a lack of belief in cultural or racial
  superiority is in the ability to get angry at people who do stupid and
  harmful things, regardless of which culture they (seem to) come from.  If
  you actually think someone who does something stupid and harmful must be
  protected from criticism because of his culture or his skin pigmentation,
  you are a racist.  Otherwise, what is so different about some stupid
  culture who gets everyone supposedly screwed by "globalization" and a
  gang of idiot youths who take psychoactive drugs that seriously damage
  their brains?  Both are _cultures_ and they should be left alone, right?

> Nestle steps into THEIR culture; why should they have an obligation to
> know about Nestle's culture?

  Yeah, right.  And when people from the same culture come to the "West",
  their "culture" must be protected from "Western influence".  So either
  way, Western culture should not influence these poor hapless bastards and
  it is all our fault that they get screwed over because they are stupid.

  Put their retarded cultures in a museum and give the people who obviously
  suffer from them a _real_ chance, dammit.  The problem is not so-called
  exploitation, it is that their cultures are unable to withstand attempts
  to _be_ exploited, both on the societal and the personal level, and those
  attempts will _always_ occur.  Please recall that the evil white dudes
  who "enslaved" all those Africans never actually trapped or caught _any_
  of them themselves -- why bother when they could just purchase them from
  the tribes that more than willingly enslaved members of other tribes,
  because slavery had certainly been the accepted policy among themselves
  in those _bad_ cultures for many millennia.  We white guys may not have
  the _right_ answer, but we most certainly do have a _better_ answer than
  crappy cultures like that.  (That we in fact embraced slavery of our own
  people and other tribes not _that_ many years earlier is no more than
  evidence that we also were once pretty crappy, but at least we figured it
  out in time.  However, today we are dead set on _inventing_ the slave,
  instead -- through machines, computers, and robots.  The idea of having
  someone to command that will do any damn idiotic task you give it has not
  exactly died.  In fact, many managers still believe in slavery, a stupid
  cultural thing that led to such disasters as labor unions and communism,
  neither of which would have happened if the people in power had had any
  brains at all.  But brains may not be enough: ask any graduate student
  about his professor's personal beliefs on slavery.)

  Regardless of how one views _any_ culture, everyone has an obligation to
  himself, and a duty to those who might pick up the pieces afterwards, to
  figure out as best he can what he is getting himself into.  Failure to do
  so cannot be explained by blaming a retarded culture that has failed to
  develop the concept of planning.  Some stupid mistakes people make cause
  death.  This is a fact of life.  It is true whether it involves reckless
  disregard for personal safety around fire, guns, or electricity, or
  abandoning your livelihood for somebody else's promises, "patron" or not.
  Stupid cultures who believe in patrons die.  Smart people in those
  cultures get out before it is too late.  I for one welcome anyone who has
  the guts and brains to escape from such a retarded culture.  (But I am
  also inclined to send those back who bring their culture with them and
  demand protection from the realities of what they have chosen.)

  I do not believ that the "victims" of "globalization" are victims.  I
  believe they are trying to enforce their crappy cultures on "us" much
  more than "we" are trying to impose ours on them.  Those who favor those
  cultures and still live in the "West" could just move to their favorite
  cultures and live there instead of trying to get anyone to adopt the
  backward, retarded cultures that are so easily "victimized".

> Oh, and some people there lisp..  :-)

  I appreciate that the "gratuitous Lisp relevance" idea has caught on.

#:Erik
-- 
  Travel is a meat thing.